Decision‐making competence: External validation through an individual‐differences approach

Abstract

This study asks to what extent (a) individuals show consistent performance differences across typical behavioral decision-making tasks, and (b) how those differences correlate with plausible real-world correlates of good decision making. Seven tasks, chosen to span the domain of decision-making skills, were administered to participants in an ongoing longitudinal study providing extensive social, psychological, and behavioral measures. Performance scores on individual tasks generally showed small, positive inter-task correlations. An aggregate measure of decision-making competence (DMC) was appropriately correlated with plausible sources, concomitants, and outcomes of good decision making, suggesting the underlying construct's external validity. Higher DMC scores were associated with more intact social environments, more constructive cognitive styles, and fewer 'maladaptive' risk behaviors. In each case, DMC adds to the predictive validity of general measures of cognitive ability. These results suggest that poor decision making on common laboratory tasks is related to real-world antecedents and consequences of poor decision making.

The Multifold Relationship Between Memory and Decision Making: An individual-differences study

“…As the previous summary of the literature makes clear, these cognitive operations require working memory and executive control resources. In line with this view, previous A-DMC studies have shown that Resistance to Framing is positively related with a general composite measure of executive control in a sample of adolescents (Parker & Fischhoff, 2005) and with the updating/inhibition dimension of executive control beyond fluid intelligence . showed that the observed age-related decline in Resistance to Framing can be mediated by a correspondent decline in fluid intelligence.…”

“…However, individual-differences studies on the Under/Overconfidence task have provided varying results, possibly due to differences in predictors and samples. Adolescents' performance on this task was positively associated with a general measure of executive functioning (Parker & Fischhoff, 2005), while this positive correlation was found only for some measures of executive functioning in young adults . Moreover, did not find a significant correlation between performance in Under/Overconfidence and age, whereas observed a significant negative correlation.…”

“…Dual-task studies showed that participants tend to rely on simpler judgment and evaluation strategies or emotion-based choice processes under high concurrent cognitive load (e.g., De Neys, 2006;De Neys & Verschueren, 2006, Hinson, Jameson & Whitney, 2003Hinson & Whitney, 2006;Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999), with working-memory resources being necessary to articulate a preference or judgment based on a more thoughtful consideration of the options and associated information (e.g., Evans, 2008;Stanovich & West, 2008). Moreover, individual-difference studies observed that participants with greater working memory capacity provide less subadditive probability judgments (Dougherty & Hunter, 2003) and that participants with better performance in executive functioning tests obtain better results in cognitively-demanding judgment and decision-making tasks (Del Missier, Mäntylä & Bruine de Bruin 2010Parker & Fischhoff, 2005). Additionally, studies on individual differences highlighted age-related declines only in cognitively-taxing judgment and decision-making tasks that are more closely associated with fluid intelligence measures (Bruine de Bruin, Parker & Fischhoff, 2007.…”

Cognitive Ability, Expectations, and Beliefs About the Future: Psychological Influences on Retirement Decisions

“…Presumably this could affect the reasonableness of retirement planning. These results are consistent with prior research on decision-making competence, which includes a task that assesses individual differences in the coherence of expectations (Parker & Fischhoff, 2005;Bruine de Bruin et al, 2007).…”

Decision research strategies.

“…As with many other personality traits, such behavior turns out to be situation dependent (e.g., someone who takes career risks may be a cautious investor or traveler). Looking at differences in decision-making competence (Parker & Fischhoff, 2005;Stanovich & West, 1998) The next section summarizes four application domains of the behavioral decision research strategy, with analogies to cancerrelated decisions. When successful, these applications not only produce better decisions but also advance the science through the interplay of applied basic and basic applied research (Baddeley, 1979).…”